Trapped
by Lady Emily
Summary: Nancy is trapped... in more ways than one. Alternate version of The Last Resort. COMPLETED.
1. Search

Disclaimer: I do not own the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, or any related characters and am not making any money from this story.

A/N: This is part one of a three part story taking place during The Last Resort. You all know the scene. Anyway, this is just a slightly different take on what would have happened if Frank and Nan had been trapped in the snowbound cabin a little longer... and how they would (should!) have dealt with what happened there. Enjoy!

"Joe?" George Fayne asked, eyes straining to identify the figure she'd bumped into in the dark.

Joe Hardy reached for the tall brunette's shoulders to steady her. "Yeah, it's me. Any luck?"

Bess Marvin sighed from behind her cousin George. "None. We checked the dining rooms, the disco, our room, the lobby, and all the downstairs lounges. We asked around. No one's seen them." The petite blonde shivered in the chilly air. Ever since the power had gone out in the Mount Mirage ski lodge almost three hours ago, the building had been getting colder and colder. Bess longed to join the other residents, clustered around the blazing lounge fireplaces roasting hot dogs, but she knew she'd never be able to put her mind at rest if she wasn't helping to look for Frank and Nancy. She hadn't seen them since before the power outage- nobody had- and she was starting to get worried.

"I checked mine and Frank's room, the upstairs lounges, the ski rental counter, and the kitchens." Joe said. "I talked to Ken and he said he hadn't seen them, but he told me they weren't in the basement or the boiler room... not that I'd expect them to be."

"Where _would_ you expect them to be?" George said, attempting to warm the chilly fingers protruding from her cast with her good, gloved hand.

"I don't know!" Joe said. "That's what's bothering me. I'd expect them to be around here, looking for us! This whole power failure thing wasn't exactly in our agenda for today. It isn't like them to disappear like this." He glanced around the darkened hallway, the only source of light a long window at one end, mostly blocked by drifts of snow almost three feet high. In the leaden sky, the wind howled loudly, sending large wet snowflakes swirling to the ground.

Although she could barely make out his features in the faint gray-blue glow, Bess could clearly hear the anxiety in Joe's voice. Despite his calm facade, she knew he was more worried about his brother and Nancy than he let on. "Don't worry, Joe," she soothed, laying one mitten on his sleeve. "Frank and Nancy can take care of themselves. They're very... capable." Her suggestive wink was lost in the dark.

Joe huffed a quick laugh, but didn't sound reassured. "I don't know, Bess. I mean, if I was the one disappearing with a girl... well, that'd be different. But Frank would never pull a stunt like that."

"Not even with Nancy?" George said doubtfully. "I mean, we've all noticed it, right? They aren't always, well, their normal selves when they're together." She looped her good arm through Joe's, saying "Frank and Nancy didn't just vanish. I'm sure they're cozied up around here somewhere." George sure hoped so. She glanced out the window at the raging storm and bit her lip to keep from voicing a more pessimistic alternative. She knew that they'd checked the hotel fairly thoroughly, and no one had seen head nor hide of the missing pair. _If they had gone outside..._

"They wouldn't have... gone outside, would they?" Bess suggested meekly, and George's head snapped her way in surprise- it seemed that for once the dynamically different cousins were on the same wavelength.

Folding his arms, Joe turned away from the girls. "If they did, they need help." he said seriously, striding toward the front lobby. "Now."

George tagged after him. "Joe, even if they did leave, we have no idea which exit they went out or where they were headed. We don't even know how long they've been out there."

As the trio reached the stairwell at the end of the hall Bess stopped short. "We might have _some _idea." The window was slightly open- and caught on the clasp, a strand of pink yarn fluttered in the chilly draft. "That's from Nancy's sweater. She was wearing it this morning."

George frowned at her cousin. "Bess, are you sure?"

"Yes!" Bess insisted. "Her new sweater. I helped her pick it out. This is the first time she's even worn it."

"Okay," Joe said, clearly trusting Bess's word. "So we know Nancy was here recently." he moved closer to the window, giving it a push to close it, but it was stuck. He grunted with effort until it finally swung shut with a bang. "Ow. She probably ripped her sweater trying to close this thing. It's no wonder she couldn't get it."

"Maybe she didn't have time to finish." Bess suggested. "Maybe she saw something and ran outside." she pointed down the steps to the nearby fire exit.

"Could be. Not much to see out this window though." Joe noted. The overhang obscured most of the nearby grounds, leaving only a view of the distant mountains. "Maybe she heard something."

"But what?" George said. "We don't know if she heard anything at all, let alone what it was. I don't see how this is going to help us find them."

"Well, we're assuming they went outside." Joe said thoughtfully. "They'd have to have gotten some kind of lead to make them run out there in this."

"Maybe they were following someone!" Bess said.

"Someone who was taking a stroll in _this_?" Joe gestured to the blizzard. "No one should want to leave the lodge on a day like today."

George gasped and Joe and Bess turned to look at her. "Unless they lived on the mountain." George finished. "What if it was Pete? What if Pete was the one they overheard and they followed him up to his cabin?"

* * *

"Frank." Nancy whispered. "I think I'm getting warmer."

Frank's brow furrowed in concern as he looked at her. She had stopped shivering, but her face was pale and her lips had begun to take on a bluish tint. "No, you're n-not." he murmured through chattering teeth. "That's s-stage three of hypothermia."

Nancy fought the fear that bubbled up inside her at his words. She didn't want to die, not now, not here, but she was losing the will to fight. She was so cold and her eyelids were so heavy...

Frank blew a breath of warm air into his gloved hands and sat up straighter, propping himself up against the cabin's wooden wall. After discovering that they were trapped in the snowbound cabin, he and Nancy had found the spot in the cabin most protected from the wind blowing in through the shattered window. Carefully avoiding the broken glass and the snow that had spilled in during the avalanche, they had built a shelter, upending the freezing metal table to block the most direct drafts and swaddling themselves in Pete's few threadbare blankets. Despite their best efforts, however, the low temperatures were slowly draining the energy from both teens.

"Nancy!" Frank said urgently, seeing his friend's eyes drifting closed. "Nancy, open your eyes. Look at me!"

Fighting her body for control of that one little motion, Nancy complied. "It's hard, Frank." Her breathing was faster than normal and her vision seemed to drift in and out of focus.

"I know, Nan." Frank said soothingly, trying to hide his own terror. He wasn't sure which scared him more, the numbness seeping into his own limbs and creeping along the edges of his brain, or the sight of Nancy's vibrant blue eyes sliding shut, her face cold and white as a corpse's. "B-but, we can't just g-give up." He made a grab for the blanket that was draped around the pair, but it slipped right through his icy fingers. He flexed them deliberately before grabbing the blanket again, this time pulling it even tighter around them.

* * *

"Okay, so, worst case scenario, Pete's got them?" Bess asked, trying to keep up with Joe as he strode in the direction of the main dining room.

"No." Joe said through clenched teeth. "Worst case scenario is that they're stuck outside in this blizzard." His plan, whether Frank would have approved it or not, was to hop on a snowmobile and comb the area until he found them. Turning a corner quickly, he collided headfirst with a tall, dark-haired man. "Sorry." he said brusquely, before doing a double take. "Ned?"

"Joe Hardy?" Ned Nickerson squinted at the trio in the darkness. "Bess, George!" he exclaimed. "I got in late last night, before the storm started. I've been looking for you guys all day! Where's Nancy?"

Joe sighed deeply. "We don't know."

"You don't know." Ned repeated, hearing the gravity in Joe's voice. "And that brother of yours must be around here somewhere..." he prompted.

"Also missing." George said matter-of-factly. She and Bess knew firsthand how jealous Ned could be concerning Nancy and Frank's relationship, but she didn't think that now was the time to be dramatic. "There's been a murder, we were investigating, and now Nancy and Frank are missing. We think they might be in trouble."

Ned's eyebrows lifted and his jaw clenched. "Okay. What do we do?" he said finally.

Joe started to walk again and the group followed him as he explained, "I'm sure that Ken Harrison, the owner of the resort, will lend us a couple of snowmobiles. Our first stop should be Pete's cabin- the only reason they would have gone outside is if they were following-"

"Pete?" Ned questioned. "The handyman Pete? _That_ Pete?"

Bess directed her gaze where Ned was pointing and gasped. In the shadows just a few feet away stood the gruff prospector himself.

* * *

"We've been here a long t-time." Nancy forced the words through uncooperative lips. "If no one finds us soon..." The statement went unfinished, its ending implied. "They might not even know we're missing yet. Frank..." Her voice cracked as she tried not to let the hot tears spill from her eyes. If Frank could be strong, so could she.

Frank shook his head vehemently. "I'm sure they're looking, Nan. The others... Joe..." The tears in her eyes distracted him from his sentence. After kissing her earlier, Frank had promised himself that he wouldn't do anything else he would regret later. But despite his reassuring words, he was becoming less and less sure that there would be a later.

After a long pause, he wrapped his arms around Nancy tentatively. When she burrowed her face into his shoulder, he held her even more tightly, pressing his cheek into her white wool hat. "Nancy," he said finally, his voice a low rasp. "Earlier, when I k-k-kissed you, it was nothing. I didn't mean... I mean, we were both overwhelmed... this whole situation-"

"Frank." Nancy whispered, her face still pressed to his chest. "It _was_ something. Not j-just the situation... I've wanted you to kiss me f-for a long time."

Frank felt his heart clench in his chest at her quiet confession. They were words that Nancy might have lived her whole lifetime without saying. Feelings that might have been suppressed forever if not for the desperation of the circumstances and the undeniable knowledge that death was near. "I've wanted to kiss you too, Nancy Drew." he admitted softly, unable to smile, to look into her eyes, to do anything but hold her close and wait.

* * *

A/N: Oh, and I brought Ned in a little early. Anyway, please review! Part 2 coming soon.


	2. Rescue

A/N: Okay- Part Two is a short one, but hopefully you'll like it. As always, please leave me your thoughts in a review! Thanks!

* * *

"How much farther?" Joe demanded anxiously, as he, Ned, Bess, and George trailed Pete through the dark, frosty underground tunnel. The dimness of the lodge had been broad daylight compared to the blackness of the old mine shaft; the flickering warmth of the torch Pete carried was the only thing between the group and the icy darkness that seemed to be closing in.

"Not much." Pete replied shortly. "You know, if that brother of yours and his girlfriend weren't so darned snoopy they wouldn't be in this position. Any fool knows you don't go running around in a snowstorm like this'un." he coughed and then spit onto the floor of the shaft.

Bess wrinkled her nose in distaste. Pete was coarse and ill-tempered, but she had to be grateful to him for being sympathetic to their plight. No one knew if Nancy and Frank would be at his cabin or not, but when the group of detectives had confronted him-somewhat accusingly- Pete had not only told them about the underground passages from the lodge to his cabin, but volunteered to take them there to check. Pete may not have liked Frank and Nancy much, but he'd said that if anyone could be out suffering in that blizzard, he couldn't put his mind at ease unless he'd done everything he could to help. Hearing the seriousness of his tone didn't reassure Bess of her friends' chances of survival, if they were, indeed, out there, but it had warmed her to the gruff old prospector. And he did have a point. Nancy and Frank should know better after all these years than to go and get themselves done in by some bad weather!

In front of her, Pete stopped, seemingly in the middle of the tunnel, and jammed his torch into a niche in the wall. A second later Bess grunted as Joe bumped into her from behind. She eyed his tight jaw and clenched fists sympathetically. Joe and Frank were very close, and it was easy to see that the uncertainty of Frank's condition was scaring him more than he tried to let on. Bess turned back to Pete and saw with surprise that he was scaling the tunnel wall! She hadn't noticed in the darkness that the pegs protruding from the shaft wall were actually the rungs of a ladder.

* * *

Nancy blinked lethargically as she noticed a bulge forming in the nearby carpet. "Hey." she whispered tiredly, her voice creaking like a rusty gate. "Look. Hey, Frank... Frank." Cradled in his arms, she rolled her eyes upward to see his face. His eyes were closed, face pale, lips cracked. "Frank." she moaned, panic starting to rise in her minimally-alert brain. "Come on. Come on! Look!" She was shaking badly as she sat up to touch his face, rocking him softly at first, then harder. "Frank!"

She was well and truly distraught by the time Pete had managed to free the trapdoor and himself from the well-worn carpet. "I'll be damned." he gasped, beelining for the pair of teenagers.

"What is it?" Joe grunted, hauling himself through the trapdoor after the old miner. His heart nearly stopped upon seeing the scene. "No." The cabin's one room was a disaster. Broken glass littered the floor around the window, snow blowing in to dampen the nearby carpet. Pete's shelves and desk were in disarray- papers, utensils, and bottles of chemicals lay where the rumbling of the avalanche had scattered them. The bed in the corner was unmade, having been stripped to the mattress for blankets. The kitchen table lay on its side in a corner. And curled behind it lay his brother, achingly still and as white as the snow itself. Next to Frank, wrapped in his unmoving arms, was a frantic Nancy, shaking and pleading with him, icy tears clinging to her eyelashes.

"Wake up! Please!" she was sobbing in a raw voice.

Pete knelt next to her and laid a hand on her arm. "All right, missy. Calm down. You're safe now." he tried in vain to get close enough to ascertain Frank's condition, but in her hysteria Nancy was blocking his view, not even seeming to realize he was there.

"Frank!" Joe exclaimed, crossing the room in two strides to crouch next to his brother. "Come on, Frank..." he glanced up at Pete urgently. "We've gotta get him back to the lodge."

Nancy's gaze locked on the younger Hardy. "Joe!" she cried. "Help!"

Bess and George were now in the cabin, watching the scene in horror. Ned, having helped George ascend the ladder with her cast, appeared last. "Nancy!" he gasped, rushing to pull her into his arms.

Nancy resisted. "Help!" she pleaded. "Help Frank!"

Joe tentatively touched his brother and was relieved when Frank's eyelids fluttered slightly. "He's alive. Let's go!" he grunted with the effort of hoisting Frank up and over his shoulder, only to have Pete push him away with the sweep of an arm.

"Get her calmed down. She's suffering from serious hypothermia, a panic attack is the last thing she needs." Pete said gruffly, gesturing to Nancy. As Joe stepped back, the miner lifted Frank over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and moved to the trapdoor, steadying his charge with one hand as he grasped the ladder with the other.

Turning back to Nancy, Joe saw that Ned was trying without success to comfort the girl detective, who at this point was far from coherent. Sending an apologetic look to her boyfriend, Joe held out his hand to Nancy. "Come on, Nan. It'll be okay. Let's go with Frank." He sighed, relieved, as she calmed slightly and moved into his arms, her sobs slowly subsiding.

Despite his anxiety about Frank, Joe somehow found the patience to guide Nancy's shivering form down the ladder and into the shaft. He pulled her arm around his neck, supporting her as they walked unsteadily towards the lodge. The further they walked, the more Nancy's steps faltered and the more alarmed Joe became. He didn't know how long Frank and Nancy had been in the cabin, and he didn't know much about hypothermia, but he knew enough to tell that both his brother and Nancy were in serious danger. "Nan," he said gently, only the barest undercurrent of tension in his voice, "why don't you let me carry you, alright?"

The fact that Nancy would consent to Joe's carrying her was only a testament to the severity of her condition. Murmuring something unintelligible, she nodded and allowed him to sweep her into his arms. Tucking her face into Joe Hardy's warm shoulder, Nancy finally let sleep overcome her.


	3. Aftermath

**A/N:** And here is part three. Sorry about the wait, I did some last minute editing to satisfy myself with the ending. Hope you like it!

* * *

Ned bit at his already-chapped lips as he sat staring into the lounge fireplace. This horrifying experience was not what he'd expected to find when he'd come to Mount Mirage last night. He'd known that Nancy was on a case, of course- she always was. And he'd known that, as always, she could be in some kind of danger at any given moment. She hadn't told him that the Hardys were here, but then, she rarely gave him the details of her cases unless she felt he needed to know. Probably because of all of their fights over her constant talk of mysteries.

He sighed. Maybe they had had their differences over her detective work in the past, but if they had it was only because he was afraid it would end up like this. Nancy and Frank could have died up there this afternoon doing their investigating; _would _have if no one had come to find them! Ned remembered the stab of irrational jealousy he'd felt seeing Nancy wrapped in Frank's arms, the pain he'd felt when she didn't seem to recognize him and pushed him away. And what if Dr. Mansfield couldn't revive her? What if she was never able to explain herself? What if he was never able to tell her that it was okay, that he loved her?

"Hot dog?" Ned started as a long stick with a hot dog on one end appeared in his line of vision. Chester Peabody offered him the other end, and Ned accepted it with a terse nod of thanks. Unlike everyone else in this place, who seemed to adore the eccentric inventor, Ned found him tiresome and annoying. However, he had to give the man credit for his quick thinking in treating Nancy and Frank. With the power lines still down and the generators out of order, most of Dr. Mansfield's medical equipment was useless, and with no central heating the inside of the lodge was nearly as cold as the outside. When Pete and Joe had carried the freezing pair in, Chester had managed to rig up a couple of electric blankets to run on batteries on the spot, as well as offered up the services of yet another unpatented invention- a chemical compound which boiled water in seconds.

"The doctor thinks they're coming out of it." Chester said conversationally. "I'm no expert, but I think so too- they both have a little more color in their faces. Lucky pair, those two. Remind me of Pearly and myself. Every couple has its good time and bad times, but those two'll pull through. I can tell."

If Ned hadn't already been miserable he would have been seething at the comment. Instead he withdrew his stick from the fire and wrested the charred hot dog from the stick onto a bun. Although the most cursory glance confirmed that it was more ash than meat, Ned took a big bite and ground his teeth together stoically.

"Ned." Bess appeared behind him. "We think she's coming around." Choking down the last of his awful meal, Ned jumped up to follow her back to Dr. Mansfield's makeshift infirmary- that was, two cots set up in front of the kitchen fireplace, away from the prying eyes of the other guests. "Oh, and Frank is too."

* * *

_He was so tired. His fingers wouldn't flex, his arms had no strength. It took all of the energy he had to force air in and out of his lungs, his efforts being expelled into their icy tomb as a cloud of white mist. He looked down at the girl in his arms, motionless in his stiff embrace, her eyelashes finally sealed shut with frozen tears, cracked white lips pursed in a calm and silent mockery of sleep. _

_She was dead, and he lacked the energy to scream or sob or pray. He closed his eyes and hot tears streamed from them, dripping off his nose and into her long titian hair. He became too tired to breathe..._

Frank awoke, gasping. It was dark.

"Frank!"

His racing heartbeat calmed, soothed by the familiar voice. He didn't know where he was, but his brother was there too. Seeing Joe perched on the end of his bed reassured him that he was safe for the time being, and he closed his eyes, relaxing into a cocoon of warm blankets, and flexed his sore limbs as he waited for the memory of what had happened to hit him. When it did, he sat bolt upright, no small feat considering the number of blankets he was wrapped in. "Nancy!"

"She's here. She's okay." a flat voice replied somewhere to his left.

Craning his neck, Frank found the source of the voice. In the light from the crackling fire he could make out another cot just like his own which held a sleeping Nancy. Standing next to her, smoothing her hair back from her face, was Ned Nickerson. Frank couldn't for the life of him remember Ned being at Mount Mirage, and he certainly had no idea why the lodge was in darkness, but he did remember being trapped in Pete's cabin with Nancy, scared, freezing, and alone. Staring at her unconscious figure, bathed in the fire's golden glow, Frank felt a desperate need to talk to her, to pull her into his arms and reassure himself that she was okay. He satisfied himself with asking, "Are you sure she's all right?"

"We hope so, big brother." Joe said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." Frank replied. "Kind of achy. Warm."

Dr. Mansfield stepped forward. "Well, you have been through quite an ordeal, Mr. Hardy. You and Miss Drew both exhibited signs of moderate to severe hypothermia, and without the lodge's electricity or outside medical assistance I'm afraid blankets and warm water were all we could do. It's really a miracle that your friends managed to find you in time to prevent any lasting tissue damage." he reached out and slipped a thermometer into Frank's mouth. "Here, let's get your temperature."

"How'd you find us?" Frank asked Joe around the thermometer.

"Bess, George and I were looking everywhere for you two in the lodge. When we didn't find you, we guessed that you might have gone outside and gotten lost or stuck, and that you might have made it up to Pete's cabin. We ran into Ned here, and then we found Pete and asked him to help us find you. Turns out there were secret mining tunnels under the mountain leading right up to Pete's living room."

Frank groaned, momentarily exposing the thermometer. "You mean we could have just walked out of there the whole time?" He clamped his mouth shut again at Dr. Mansfield's stern look.

Joe shrugged. "I dunno how long you were up there, but by the time we got there you were in no condition to walk anywhere. You were out cold- no pun intended. Nancy was freaking out."

Dr. Mansfield gave the sleeping girl a sympathetic look. "Poor thing. A near-death experience like that is very traumatic. And with the hypothermia affecting her brain at that point it's no wonder she panicked. She probably thought you were dead. Much longer in that cabin and you both would have been." He removed the thermometer from Frank's mouth and noted with satisfaction that his temperature was almost back up to normal. "Rest is really the best thing for you now, give your body some time to recover."

There was a soft moan from the other cot and Nancy began to stir restlessly. Ned rummaged through the blankets to find her hand and hold it in his own. "Nan? Nancy, I'm here..."

"...Frank?"

Ned had been in a situation like this before, but that didn't stop the anger and hurt he felt hearing Nancy call for Frank instead of him. "Hardy, I think she wants you." he said dryly, stepping away from the bedside.

"Frank?" Nancy whispered again, more urgently this time.

Frank heard her breathing grow panicked and fought his way through the layers of blankets to get out of the bed. Stumbling to her side, he knelt, taking her hand. "Nan? Nan. It's okay now. We're safe now."

Nancy opened her eyes and looked at him long and hard before letting out a long sigh of relief. She blinked tears out of her eyes as she too disengaged herself from the blankets to hold her arms open to Frank. Holding him tightly, she whispered, "Frank... I thought..." She seemed to compose herself, pulling back slightly. "Sorry, I was just... That was scary."

"Agreed." Frank said with a gentle smile. He kept hearing the doctor's words-_"She probably thought you were dead..." _He didn't know how he'd react if their situations had been reversed and Nancy had passed out first. Scratch that, he knew: he would have been frantic.

Suddenly, the memory of his recent nightmare broke over him like a cold ocean wave- he had dreamed that he'd seen her die and was helpless to stop it. He shook his head slightly to rid it of the miserable thought, but he couldn't shake the icy grip that seemed to encircle his lungs at the very idea.

Not releasing her hold on Frank's arms, Nancy looked around the darkened room. "How long was I out?" Frank too, looked to the doctor, realizing that he had no idea what time it was either.

"Over nine hours." the doctor replied. "It's a little past midnight."

Nancy raised her eyebrows, doing the mental math to find that she and Frank must have been stuck in the cabin for almost four hours. "Wow." she sighed, leaning back on her blankets. Despite her nine-hour rest, she felt completely fatigued.

Dr. Mansfield nodded. "It's natural that you feel tired, Nancy. Before you fall asleep again, you should eat something, or at least drink something. You're probably both dehydrated. If we had the medical facilities I'd have you both on IVs."

Nancy pulled Frank up to sit next to her on the bed and they both gratefully accepted the bowls of hot soup handed to them by Joe. "Thanks Bro." Frank said.

"How did you find us up there?" Nancy asked, as curious about their rescue as Frank had been.

Together, Joe, Bess, and George recounted the story of their encounters with Pete and Ned and Frank's and Nancy's discovery and rescue. Both detectives had to admire their friends' reasoning skills and quick thinking. "Told you they were looking for us." Frank teased, elbowing Nancy gently.

Nancy smiled at him, but her eyes were searching the room, a troubled look haunting them. "You said Ned was here... where is he now?"

The group looked around. None of them had noticed Ned slip away. Bess shook her head. "He was by your bed, Nan. Sat there for hours. Maybe he went to... use the bathroom or something."

"Oh." Nancy said softly. But something inside her was saying that that wasn't the reason for Ned's disappearance at all.

* * *

Two days and a solved case later, Nancy and the Hardys stood in the lodge lobby. "Take care, Nance." Joe said, stepping forward to give her a hug. "I'm sure we'll be seeing you."

"I'm sure you will." Nancy replied, laughing as he winked at her before picking up his bags and heading outside.

This left Frank and Nancy standing before each other, and Nancy felt compelled to say something. "Well, Frank," she murmured. "It's been fun, as always." There had been an unspoken agreement between them not to talk about their time in the cabin.

Frank smiled softly back at her, taking her hand. "I guess this is goodbye, again." he gave her hand a squeeze and then dropped it, only to pick it up again a second later. "You know, Nancy, if things were different..." he paused, unsure whether he had overstepped his boundaries.

Nancy set down her duffel bag and looked into Frank's brown eyes, sensing between them, for a moment, the same longing they had felt before they'd kissed in the cabin. "Maybe someday, they will be." she murmured, biting her lip shyly.

Frank nodded slowly. "I half hope you're right, Nan." With a resigned smile he leaned forward and kissed her quickly on the cheek, his mouth just barely touching the corner of her lips. He released her hand and stepped back. "'Till then, Drew."

"'Till then." Nancy agreed, eyes sparkling. She watched as he walked away, not moving until he was long gone from sight. "'Till then..." she whispered again, raising a hand to her cheek.

"Ready to head out?" George appeared at Nancy's shoulder. She followed Nancy's gaze to the door the Hardys had just exited. "Nancy, are you okay?"

Nancy shrugged. "He kissed me."

_Frank Hardy._ George sucked in a breath. "How was it?"

"It was... something." Nancy decided, a troubled look crossing her face. "Ever since the cabin I've been having these nightmares where... we don't get rescued, and Frank dies and then I regret not telling him about my feelings for him-"

"And what are they?" George asked carefully, seeing Bess and Ned appear in the lobby out of the corner of her eye.

Nancy smiled faintly. "I don't know. Admiration, I guess. Comradery. Warmth."

"Love?" George finished quietly.

"I don't know." Nancy said. "I sometimes feel like I could if I let myself. But, I do love Ned, I'm not exactly free to... It's just sometimes I mess up, and... Frank... Should I have told him how I feel, George?"

George had no answer to give. "Don't analyze this, Nan. You'll drive yourself crazy."

Nancy knew her friend was right, but she couldn't be content without an answer to her question. Should she have told Frank how she felt about him? It was suddenly obvious. "I think he already knows."

George was surprised by her friend's candid, yet cryptic, decision. Nancy Drew was a mystery in and of herself sometimes. Bess would have grilled Nancy on every little detail, but George, satisfied with Nancy's revelation, simply lifted her good hand to her friend's shoulder. "Let's go."

Nancy turned her head to see Bess and Ned at the check-out counter with the luggage. Although Ned had only brought a single backpack, he had ended up with most of the bags anyway, due to George's broken wrist and Bess's chronic overpacking. When he saw her watching him he rolled his eyes and sent her a wink, evoking a smile across her thoughtful features. "Let's go." she agreed with a contented nod. With one last glance at the door, she walked over and joined her friends.

* * *

**A/N:** There you go. I think the biggest problem with the Nancy/Frank situation in The Last Resort was the way both detectives wrote it off as a mistake. I'm okay with the idea that current circumstances are keeping them from exploring their feelings for each other, but I'd have liked them to leave it open-ended with regards to what might happen in the future rather than insist that the Ned/Nancy and Frank/Callie relationships were set in stone. I tried to write some of that in there (as well as throw in a little we-almost-died angst!). I did write Ned as somewhat brooding and a bit jealous, but that's really how he's usually portrayed in the SMs, and despite that he and Nancy are always okay in the end, so I tried to convey that too.

Anyway, please review and let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading!

* * *


End file.
